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that really, truly is a worthless word.
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Your Great Pontsuwminous Self is back!!
And yet no comment on gadflies and bones? Really, tsuwm... wwh and I have been waiting for nearly 24 hours now for your final verdict on the etymology and you just blow in and blow directly out.
Please throw a little gadly bone at least my way--not sure whether wwh is still interested, although mention oysters, and he's sure to appear.
Best regards,
The Walrus
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I was expecting the Lord High Executioner, tsuwm to pronounce judgement.
In The Mikado, dr. bill, Pooh-bah was not the Lord High Executioner; he was the Lord High Everything Else.
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Siss Tsuwm-Bah! Still he remains closed tight as an oyster on the dadburned etymology. Maybe this is one of those teaching strategies to make us go word-spelunking ourselves.
Well, I'll just declare that monosterous and oyster are categorically derived from the same ancesterous word; gadflies and oysters have more in common than most people realize; and oysters are mammals. So there!
The Walrus, seeking a good carpenter to help open up these luctiferous oysters
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::sigh::
windlass, comical and comatose both have Greek roots, why don't you connect those while you're at it?
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In reply to:
i heard the story--(and other can say whether its true or not) that voting greek cities was done by counting the number of voters, and then at election time, a man would toss a small sea shell into a baskets (they had problems counting the shards, not chads.) for yea /nae, dem/rep, whig/tory what ever..
when some one had offened public sensability-- a vote would be called and if lost-- the man could be banished... shells used for voting led to some one being ostracized..
It was bits of broken pottery, called ostrakon in Greek. The Athenians had a custom whereby the citizenry could vote to send anybody into exile for a period of ten years. On polling day each voter wrote on his (no female voters -- what do you think this was, a democracy?) bit of pottery the name of the person who he wanted to send into exile. Whoever got the most votes had to get out of town asap.
Bingley
Bingley
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Bingley, thanks for sharding some light on the subject.
There must have been a minimum number of shards required for ostracizing, then exiling a citizen.
tsuwm: I'm really not suggesting that because two English words look alike and have similar languages of origin, before assuming current English forms, that there's a connection. What roused my curiosity in the first place was the similarity between the Greek roots, and that's where I wondered were there a connection between those roots. My sources here are limited, at least the ones I currently have. It appears that oyster clearly comes from "bone," but I still don't know where the "osterous" in monosterous comes from if I trace it as far back as I am able. That's why I had hoped for some elucidation from you, who often helps us open recalcitrant oysters here.
Anyway, my curiosity (hmmm, wonder whether that osity was ever related to bones...just kidding, really) is temporarily quiescent, though not ossified, about this matter. I'll bone up on the subject when it flares up again.
Best regards,
WW
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Googling ostracism Athens led me to this site, http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/ostracis.html . The second quotation (headed Philochorus) explains that first they voted on whether to have an ostracism or not, and then on who to ostracise. You had to get a minimum of 6000 votes to be ostracised and then you had 10 days to leave Athens, though you could still receive the income from your property there. The site also has a picture of an ostrakon. Bingley
Bingley
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>What roused my curiosity in the first place was the similarity between the Greek roots...
which, in turn, roused my gibe. the roots, as you gave, are ostreon and oistros. the roots for comical and comatose are, respectively, komos and koma -- a much closer "pair".
I like to keep in mind that cleave and cleave are not cognates; this keeps me somewhat grounded in my speculations.
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Good site, Bingley. Thanks. Read there the term potsherd, also, for the ostrakon.
tsuwm: Like leitmotifs in opera, there are those verbal ones here that play on the WAD board, cleave and cleave providing one of them, though not a major one. In fact, the various leitmotifs on this board help shape it into a more satisfying whole, to my taste. I will not pursue the shaping of this monosterous one because my guess was just plain incorrect. But, I'll alert you, that sometime, somewhere, and probably often, the etymological road in retrograde will lead me to a common nexus, and that will be fun. Genesis has its own allure. Thanks for explaining your comment about comical and comatose, by the way. Hope I haven't caused you to become comatose. (hmmmm....comatose and tomatoes is awfully close--off to seeks some roots, tra la!)
Best regards,
Dub
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